LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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"The dawn is on the mountain tops." 



LIBERTY 



AS DELIVERED BY 



The Goddess 



AT HER UNVEILING 



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In the Harbor of New York 



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OCTOBER 28, 1886 



BROOKLYN, N. Y. 

i9ublisi)rt! bu tl)f 'Ixilljar, 12^8 BeiforU '^Ijc. 

1886 




»f> The Trade will lie supplied from tlic autlior s study throtigli 
the American News Coinpaiiy, New York. ^ 



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COPYRIGHTED 

1886 

BY MILLER HAGEMAN. 



PRESS OF 
THE UNIONIST-GAZETTE ASSOCIATION. 



office of 
American Committee 

OF THE 

Statue of Liberty. 

f^ New York, Nov 6, 1886. 

^HE following poem was prepared for the Inaugu- 
ral Ceremony of the Statue of Liberty, wilh the 
expectation that after it had been sulsmitted to the 
Committee it would, in case of its approval, have been deliv- 
ered by the autlior on that occasion. 

It is at once to be distinguished from all other poems written 
for the occasion by the fact that it was the only poem out of 
all that were offered which came before the Committee for 
consideratiorv. 

It gives me great pleasure to state that the judgment of the 
Committee, as well as that of my own, regarding the literary 
merits of the poem, has been most gratifyingly confirmed by 
three of America's greatest poets in their letters of commenda- 
tion to the Committee. 

It has been a source of the deepest regret that in view of 



tlie severe inclemency of the occasion, tlie extreme lengtli of 
the programme in spite of its abbreviation in every possible 
way, coupled with the length of the poem as finally completed, 
rendered it necessary at the last moment to omit it from the 
programme in the face of those more imperative obligations 
that crowded the ceremony. 

The commendable behaviour of the poet under this most 
trying ordeal has won for him so warmly the respect and regard 
of his friends that I beg to repeat in connection with this pub- 
lication the request which I made to the New York World, 
hut which unfortunately failed to reach its editor in time, viz: 
that this poem be printed in connection with the Inaugural 
Ceremony of the Statue of Liberty, in the Harbor of New 
York, October 28, 1886, to the end that its historic relation 
to that great event may be preserved beyond peradventure. 

RICHARD BUTLER. 
Secretary American Com??iii(ee. 



Preface. 



TAKE off of others all responsibility for any of the 
sentiments of this poem from which they may dissent 
(2^)_^ and put it solely on myself. I am pure in my purpose, 
in endeavoring to interpret the idea of Liberty in its genius 
and integrity for all lands and for all peoples, to bring to 
it, lest it be belittled in the eyes of men, that breadth of 
thought and of treatment which seeks not only to trace it in 
its development from great, inexorable laws of natural growth 
up througli history and humanity to its present stage, but also 
to perceive the prophetic handwriting which its great Limner- 
Queen shall throw on the Future in characters of leading light. 
I beg to thank most thoroughly the members of the committee 
for the generous subscriptions which have enabled me to put 
this print into the hands of my fellow men for the future judg- 
ment of mankind, and in thanking them to thank particularly 
the Secretary of that Committee, with whose noble efforts in 
its behalf this attempt must ever stand connected. 

MILLER HAGEMAN. 

Brooklyn, Nov. 8, 1886. 



©ctiicatrti 

to 

^^umanitg. 



Liberty, 



! [PTsj: :^^^^^x:s^ 



iw 



gHE dawn is on the mountain tops, the night 



is flying fast, 
The Hght the world hath waited for so long 
hath come at last ; 



That light whose flattery never fell on summit 

or on sea, 
That beaconing light, my countrymen, the light of 

Liberty. 

Deep in the caverns of the dark, doubled in gorgeous 
gloom. 

Bound hand and foot, lay Liberty, like morn in mid- 
night's tomb. 

Bursting her fetters she came forth with Freedom's 

scroll unfurled. 
And in her tireless hand the torch whose light shines 

round the world. 



Lone Goddess of the granite height, with daybreak 

on thy brow, 
What royal greeting waits thy grace ? whence, 

stranger, earnest thou ? 

Art thou a Persian that thy hand salutes the rising 

sun ? 
A grave Chaldean signalling the wise stars one by 

one ? 

Art thou a bright archangel clad in the black robe of 

night. 
Who, through thy awful frown of bronze, dost smile 

down on our sight ? 

Ask of the land beyond the sea toward which thy 
face is set, 

The land that saved our liberty, the land of La- 
fayette. 

When, for the creed of equal rights, for conscience 
and for thought; 

When, for the freedom of her sons, this young Repub- 
lic fought; 



When, through the angry gloom she saw the con- 
quering foe advance, 

A hght streamed out upon the sky — the oriflamb of 
France. 

Our drooping banner caught that gleam when hope 

was almost gone, 
While, as it robbed heaven of its first bright 

colors of the dawn. 

Red flamed its stripes of morning light, bright 

streaked its silver bars. 
And, breaking through the azure blue, shone out the 

morning stars. 

It stirred, it thrilled, it curled, it clomb, it waved 

away the night, 
And flung o'er Freedom's continent its courier-bird 

of light. 

Wafted from off" its wings that light across the 
water gleamed. 

Till, with twin freedom on its folds, the French tri- 
color streamed. 



Behold ! by thy great sculptor's hand, up to the 

altar led, 
Bless thou with benediction prayer the worlds thy 

light shall wed. 

While trails the red arbutus vine across the winter 

snow, 
As if with flowering drops of blood our bleeding 

tracks to show ; 

While rolls the sunset-crimsoned Seine into the 

crimsoning sea, 
France and Columbia shall stand forever one in 

thee. 

Scarce from the narrow bounds of men, scarce 

had'st thou turned thy face, 
To steep thy chafing soul in all the amplitude of 

space ; 

Scarce had'st thou breathed the boundless air and 

heard the north wind blow. 
And felt the billows break against thy massy base 

below ; 



Scarce had the lightning leaping down its spirit to 

thee lent, 
Before thy arm was raised to show what all that 

Freedom meant ; 

Till, scoffing at the night that came to mock thee 

in the dark, 
Thy heart with one electric throb shot out yon 

quivering spark, 

The currents of whose truth shall thrill till all the 

sons of earth 
Shall feel what Liberty hath cost and what its light is 

worth. 

Alive — with all thy memories, with all that thou dost 
mean, 

In the great name of Liberty we hail its Limner- 
Queen ! 

Steal thou, bright maid, the morning's blush, the 

sunset's ruddy glow. 
To greet the nations as they come, to bless them 

as they go. 



13 



Thou art as one from out the heavens, whom God 
himself hath sent, 

To seal forever Slavery's tomb as Freedom's monu- 
ment. 

Thou art, with thorn-girt crown, that marks man's 

struggle to be free, 
A rapt prophetic seer of all thy glory yet to 

be. 

Amid the starry march of worlds, peering with 

breathless pause, 
On that grand vision beyond sight of thy unfinished 

cause, 

How dajk thy dawning glory soon shall seem as 

ages gone. 
While from far suns across thy face that wave of 

light rolls on. 

For well thou know'st, though man hath wrought, 

e're thy long watch was set. 
Great things for human liberty, man hath but 

little yet. 



14 



Whence spra?ig the light that lit thy torch ? 

And as 

the vision broke, 
Pointing the Prophecy of Time, the silent Goddess 
spoke : 

"Shut up within the darkened soul, there yearned 

since Time began 
" The light of that immortal truth — the liberty of 

man; 

" Through the long, tortuous labyrinth of ignorance 

and doubt, 
" The slow procession of the Past is winding dimly 

out. 

" Borne not with outward signs of pomp the warder 

heard or saw, 
" That light came forth the latent power of universal 

law; 

" The light that in an opal holds the rainbow in the 

rock, 
" That smiles out in its unborn sleep, a cherub in the 

block, 



15 



" Works in the crucible of earth the chemistry of 
change, 

" Rends in the nodule of an Alp the ruddy moun- 
tain-range, 

" Pushes with gentle violence through seed and leaf 

and spray, 
" Drives on with steady doom of growth and blossoms 

into day, 

" Opens at morn with noiseless keys the ivory gates 
of night, 

" Sets its red sandal on the sky, the cloud, the snow- 
capped height, 

" Steps from the stained crag to the palm, the shrub, 

the daisy's cup, 
" Stirs the still couch with unseen hand and lights 

Creation up ; 

" The light that in the march of mind, from age to 

age, hath wrought 
" The bright discoveries that have flashed about the 

forge of thought ; 



i6 



" That hews the mountains, climbs the heavens, leaps 
oceans at a bound, 

" Unveils the future, limns the dead, and speaks with- 
out a sound ; 

" The light that quickens in the soul, that fires the 

eager face, 
" Inspires the hope, kindles the truth that thrills from 

race to race ; 

" The light that warms the Golden Page, that tells men 

they are free, 
'' Gleamed forth on the historic steps of human 

liberty. 

" It twinkled out, a lonely Star, upon the heavens of 

old, 
" By whose pale ray of prophecy that hght was first 

foretold. 

" It ghmmered on the Orient upon a race of slaves, 
" It led them forth as conquerors beyond the clos- 
ing waves. 



17 



It glinted on Phoenicia and at its sail-caught 

smiles 
The shuttles of her ships knit all her sandal-scented 

isles. 

It shed a broken gleam on Greece, and, with its glory 
wreathed. 

She shone with mighty words that burned and mar- 
ble gods that breathed. 

It cast a beam on Italy and, as its scroll un- 
furled, 

A power came forth upon the earth that governed 
all the world. 

It threw a ray on Runnymede from pennon, spear 
and tent, 

And, born of Magna Charta, bred the Briton's Parlia- 
ment. 

It shot a glance on Germany across the Zuyder- 

Zee, 
Where stamped with brave Reformer's blood men 

printed — Liberty. 



" It tlashe.l upon the knights of Spain and, on the 

trampled corse, 
" The man on foot, with musket raised, challenged 

the man on horse. 

"It quickened Russia's frozen heart that long refused to 

flow, 
" Till with emancipated serfs it beat from out the 

snow. 

" It dawned upon Columbia and first to freemen 

gave 
" A liberty her Martyr-Chief proclaimed to every 

slave. 

" It fired the peasantry of France weighed down with 

heavy woes, 
" And round a feudal monarchy a free republic 

rose. 

" In every country of the earth since years were in 

their youth, 
"The greatest friend to liberty hath been the light of 

truth. 



19 



"In every nation of the past whose glory hath de- 

creased, 
" The greatest foe to Hberty, the craft of king and 

priest. 

" Bred up by grand, heroic deeds, by agonizing 

throes, 
" By suffering whose hnes have wrought this resolute 

repose : 

" Forth with majestic stride from out the dusky files 

of men, 
" On whose great like man ne'er hath looked and 

ne'er shall look again : 

" Behold ! great Freedom's first-borti child, historic 

heir of Time, 
" Whose crown hath caught those scattered rays of 

every race and clime. 

" Behold ! my first bright trophy won — the Bastile's 
flaming key, 

" That yet shall open every door to bolted lib- 
erty. 



" Freedom, but never for the heart within this bosom 

warm, 
" The anarch brood, that darkly dash against it in 

the storm ; 

" Blind sea birds, saddening stupidly the island with 

their dead, 
'' And claiming liberty for that whence all its 

charms were fled. 

" Freedom, but not by demagogues, bred up in 

courts of fools ; 
" Freedom for men to use their powers by right of 

Nature's rules ; 

" The laws that hold the world in leash, the laws that 

set men free, 
" For, save through knowledge of her laws, there is no 

liberty. 

" Freedom for every living man that stands upon the 

earth, 
" For all that be he black or white belongs to him by 

birth. 



'' Freedom for every man to come and every man to 

go. 
" Freedom for every man to reajj whatever he can 

sow. 

"Freedom from party prejudice, from threat of craft 

or guild, 
" Freedom for every man to vote, for every man to 

build ; 

" For every man to own himself, to act his manhood 

out, 
" Free to believe or disbeheve and doubly free to 

doubt. 

" Freedom from aping forms of cant, that snivels 

drawls and brags, 
" From fashions that adorn the dust, but leave the 

soul in rags ; 

" From sounding titles strung on names, as coins upon 

a clown : 
" Put uj) the eagle at the ])eak but take the ])eacock 

down. 



L 



" Freedom from all alliances between the Church and 

State. 
" That whelm the body politic with sacerdotal weight. 

" Freedom from old paternal power, drivel of dotard 

lands, 
" Freedom — for power is only safe in all the people's 

hands. 

" Freedom for scholar and for school, for pulpit, 

press and speech, 
" For creeds that once have ceased to learn have also 

ceased to teach. 

" Freedom from ignorance whose god is superstition's 

ghost, 
" From dogmas that have made the cross a martyr's 

pillory-post. 

" Freedom for man to think before tradition's musty 

shelf, 
" Once for the text, twice for the gloss, and three 

times for himself. 



23 



" Freedom in all its shining forms, for science and 

for art, 
" Freedom for all the industries that multiply the 

mart. 

" Freedom from those restrictive laws whose revenues 

have ceased, — 
" Freedom — for the best government is that which 

governs least. 

" There is a law in things themselves that regulates 

their hfe, 
" That is not quickened or delayed by statute or by 

strife. 

"The greater sphere a law doth fill the greater its con- 
trol ; 
" A little liberty is not so safe as is the whole. 

" Where freedom reigns there virtue thrives, there 

truth and justice dwell ; 
" Where freedom sink.s there wealth decays, there 

gone is glory's spell. 



24 



" 'Tis from the bottom to the top the social fabric 

dies; 
" Go to the ground, there, only there, the hope of 

nations hes. 

" O many-fountained mother earth ! behold, when 

morn hath pressed 
" In iris-winking drops of dew the milk-beads from 

thy breast ; 

" Behold the fainting myriads on that full bosom 

fall, 
"While lapt in sated luxury a few men own it 

all. 

" Curs'd be the law that grants away horizoned 

leagues of land, 
" That reads God's title to the globe, grasped by a 

dead man's hand ; 

" That leaves a scion of the soil in poverty to go 
" Without a home above the ground, without a grave 
below. 



25 



" Curs'd be that blinding octopus whose phosphores- 
cent charms 

" Clutch all the shuddering crafts that come w.thin its 
spiderous arms ; 

" That stares out with its deep red eyes across the 

rolling sea, 
" And cries, ' Come up, and be ye searched ' and 

calls that — liberty. 
" Cursed be those vast complexities that smuggle fraud 

and pelf ; 
" Take — take the simple way and go straight to the 

thing itself. 

" There's not a handicraft that ])lumes the marts o 

foreign powers, 
" Worth half so much to us as theirs as 'tis to us as 

ours: 

" There's not a thing that man can give, a thing that 

man can take, 
" But leaves him for its interchange more than its 

want can make. 



26 



" We want the things that others have, we want 

their very best ; 
" Break off the chains between all lands, nor leave the 

lack confessed. 

" Take off of things the heavy toll, the tariff and the 

tax, 
" Those two great burdens that their dupes hug 

blindly to their backs ; 

" Take off of men the angry wrongs that cry against 

the land, 
" Take — take your thumb off of their throat and take 

them by the hand. 

" Honor the proletariat, but spurn the guilty 

wretch, 
" Who corners Nature's gifts for what the pinch of want 

will fetch. 

" Cursed be the law, aye doubly cursed, that dun- 
geons men for debt, 

" That huddles vice behind its bars and frees it viler 
yet; 



27 



"• That heaps a treasury for spoils, that seats without 

rebuke, 
" On thrones of corporative power, a coronetted 

duke; 

" The law, high crime at law itself, that says, ' thou 

shalt not kill, ' 
" Yet licenses two murderers, the brothel and the 

still ; 

" Feels in its heart the curse of Cain branded upon 

its face, 
" That deep, degenerative taint that rots into the 

race; 

" Reels, staggers, falls, arrests itself, and handcuffed 

shouts, ' Tm free,' — 
" The dignitary of the ditch — the slave of liberty. 

" Before the law was written down with parchment or 

with pen, 
" Before the law made citizens, the moral law made 

men. 



28 



" Law stands for human rights, but when it fails those 

rights to give, 
" Then let law die, my brothers, but let human beings 

live. 

"Justice! O Liberty, to whom the people's rights 

belong, 
"Justice! lest be in thine own light thou stand a 

brazen wrong : 

" Well have ye made great Themis blind, where Jus- 
tice stands appraised, 

" Lest she have horror of her scales if once those eyes 
were raised. 

" Light for the women of the world that mould the 
mothered age, 

" Light for the eyes pressed down to death with pen- 
ny-weighted wage ; 

" Light for the thrones till kings grow blind, light till 

the sceptre falls, 
" Light for the serfs, the hinds, the slaves, light 

through the dungeon walls ; 



29 



" Light for the lock-step in the mines, the toilers on 

the sea, 
" Light for the poor and the oppressed, light for 

humanity ; 

" Light — never till this lancing light lays bare each 

human woe, 
" Sheathed be its bloodless sword save in the bowels 

of the foe ; 

" Light — and as oft, O Liberty, the world shall lift its 

eye, 
" To watch, through coming centuries, that light 

against the sky; 

" Let not men see its glory fade upon a ruined 

land, 
" On cities sacked by anarchy or swept hy blackened 

brand ; 

" On broken columns, where the owl mopes by the 
mouldering walls, 

" On stony squalors, o'er whose heaps the moony mid- 
night falls ; 



30 



" On streets that mock the traveller's step, on squares 

whose roar is dumb, 
" On hulls that leave no trails of smoke, no harbored 

clink or hum. 

" O let men rather see that light o'er all this land of 

thine, 
" On flashing forms of industry, with rays reflected 

shine ; 

" On glowing forge, on flying wheel, on snort of iron 

steed; 
" On ships that pant trom port to port with flaming 

manes of speed ; 

" On human homes of happiness, of virtue and ot 

health, 
" On hills that break with billowy bloom in golden 

waves of wealth ; 

" On churches, with no sect below, no sect beyond 

the sky, 
" On love, the Maker's only creed, divinest liberty ; 



31 



" On princely charities that walk through the white 
wards of pain, 

" On broad humanities that bond the common peo- 
ple's reign ; 

" On states that know no North, no South, whatever 

fate befall, 
" One truth, one law, one heart, one flag, one Union 

for us all. 

" While Truth, in silence from these lips, speaks as if 

thunder spoke, 
" Looks the whole world full in the face, and strikes 

with lightning stroke, 

" Ye need no other arsenal, no navies and no 
forts, 

" No standing armies and no guns to guard your coun- 
try's ports. 

" Here stack your weapons, sheathe your swords ; 

within the sentried vault, 
" Behold ! I stand 'mid clashing hosts, to call eternal 

halt! 



32 



" Defiant as the stormless truth that guards a nation's 
trust : 

" Peace is the virtue of a land, and War a palsy- 
ing lust. 

" Ye tyrants scoff, ye war-clouds hurl your bright- 
veined bolts about, 

" Lit at the altar of its God that light shall not go 
out. 

" Go, drape the spangles of the night, go, veil the 

rising dawn, 
" Go, quench the sun, the moon, the stars, go, bid 

them all be gone ; 

" Go, memory, forget the dead, — still round this 

lighted shrine, 
" On Heaven's sublime Olympus set. Oblivion's gods 

shall shine. 

" Great Heaven's Olympus, as of old, spread with 

fresh gods again, 
" Gods, not of marble or of gold, gods of immortal 

men : 



33 



" What gods ? — the Lords' anointed, clothed with a 

divine decree? 
" No! — for at every step they blocked the way to 

Hberty. 

" What gods? — the scholars in their stalls, dishonestly 

devout ? 
" No — for they scoured the candlestick, but put the 

candle out. 

" Whence come thy gods, O Liberty, from cloisters, 

senates, thrones ? 
" Answer, ye racks, ye wheels, ye stakes, ye chains, ye 

dungeoned groans. 

" Who are these gods ? popes ? judges ? kings ? enshrined 

with storied bust ? 
" Answer, ye waters and ye winds that waft the 

martyrs' dust : 

" Answer, ye heroes from the flame, ye wild beasts 

from the pit, 
" Be they thy gods, O Liberty, by whom that torch was 

lit. 



34 



" Come from your faggots and your fires, come from 

your hunted caves, 
" Come from your ratchets and your racks, come from 

your nameless graves ; 

" Come curs'd, come bless'd ; the martyrs' smile con- 
quers the monarch's frown, 

" The stake becomes the sceptre and the gallows-cap 
the crown." 

So spake the Goddess and from that grand vision 

beyond sight. 
Came martyr-voices crying out of everlasting 

light : 

" Smite, toying heaven's bright thunderbolts above 
thy scathless head, 

" Smite war, smite wrong, smite tyranny, smite dragon- 
darkness dead ; 

" Watch with eternal vigilance, let no man take thy 

crown ; 
" Upon thy deep, colossal calm the centuries look 

down. 



35 



" Watch — such a charge as thou dost keep, by all thy 

sons on high, 
" Brooks not one tremor of the hand, one closing of 

the eye. 

" By that immortal robe of thine thy form so warmly 

wears, 
" Welded together with our blood and woven from 

our prayers ; 

" By every thread, by every fold, by every fila- 
ment, 

" By every fibre of thy frame through which our life 
is sent ; 

" By all who suffered for thy sake, by all who died 

for thee, 
" Hold up that hand for Liberty till all the world is 

free. 

" And when at length thy lonely task of Prophecy is 

done, 
" Come up, thou daughter of the dawn, and stand 

within the sun." 



36 



r 



Slowly the dragon crouched away as snatched from 

clutch and jaw, 
Loomed that shrived wonder that the Seer on lonely 

island saw. 

Lo ! on transfiguration's height, translated from the 

earth, 
A queen cried out before the throne in throes of 

royal birth : 

" Call trumpeters," and lo, they thrilled each strong 

triumphant pang; 
" Call seraphims," and lo, with song the vast rotunda 

rang ; 

" Call worlds," and lo, with rushing pace through archi- 
trave and arch, 
Came rolUng up from cycHng orbs the music of 
their march ; ■ • 

While, as the wheeling planet swung through all the 

heavens of space. 
As He who was the light of men smiled in his 

mother's face : 



37 



Trampling the moon beneath her feet, the pale stars 

one by one, 
Behold ! in heaven, a woman stood all clothed on 

with the sun : 

Still, with apocalyptic hand uplifted to the 

throne ; 
Liberty — signalling — lost in light — no light but Ciod 

alone ! 








38 



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